The cost of being a member of a private golf club in Japan has reached a new 15-year high as the country experiences what is being called a ‘third boom’.
Japan’s stock market index, the Nikkei, reported last week that the average price of membership at 150 leading golf courses on the Kanto Golf Membership Exchange rose 0.8% from the previous month to 2.98 million (just under £15,000).
Japan’s golf population, which has steadily declined since the collapse of the economy in the early 1990s, is showing a revival in the wake of the pandemic. According to membership trading company Sakura Golf, 87.9 million people visited a golf club last year in Japan, exceeding the 86.5 million in 2019, the year before the pandemic.
Industry commentators in Asia are describing the surge in interest in golf in Japan as the ‘third golf boom’, following the first in the late 1960s, and the second during the bubble economy from 1985 to the early 1990s.
There are currently about 2,200 golf courses operating in Japan – down from a high of 2,800 – and there has been no significant change in course development since 2020. As the golf population increases and the number of golf courses stagnates, there has been renewed interest in individual and corporate club membership, leading to a rise in prices across the board.
Interest in the game in Japan is also being generated amongst the younger demographic following a new wave of home-grown players performing well at the top of the professional game. Former world no.2 Hideki Matsuyama, who won the Masters in 2021, has been joined by the likes of recent DP World Tour winners Ryo Hisatsune, Yuto Katsuragawa, Keita Nakajima and Rikuya Hoshino in flying the Japanese flag on the men’s global tours.
Japanese women are arguably enjoying even greater success in the pro game, with six currently inside the world’s top 30 – and 17 in the top 100 – including the likes of 2025 AIG Women’s Open champion Miyu Yamashita and recent LPGA Tour winners Rio Tasehda, Mao Saigo and Akie Iwai.